Human Growth and Development / Unit 6 HGD 0766 worked example, 60 to 90 seconds
Gender Labelling, Stability and Constancy
The idea
Children's understanding of gender develops in three steps. Labelling comes first: most children can label their own gender by about three. Gender stability follows at about four: children understand that boys grow into men and girls into women, though a new haircut or activity may still seem to change a person's gender. Gender constancy arrives between about three and six: gender persists across superficial changes in appearance or behaviour.
In practice
A four-year-old sure that a boy who puts on a dress becomes a girl, and the same child at six laughing at the idea.
Where people slip
This sequence reflects developing cognition. Gender schema theory is a different account: it describes the mental categories into which children sort people, activities and traits, and how those categories filter what children remember. Once constancy arrives, children's thinking about gender rules usually grows more flexible.
Your place on the trail
Every lesson rests on earlier ones and opens later ones. Tap any to jump.
Something wrong in this lesson? Flag it · Sources for Human Growth and Development